WASHINGTON - President Obama's approval rating in a closely- watched
poll has sunk to a new low that will likely further damage his party's
dimming prospects in this fall's midterm elections.

As he returns from a week long, four-nation Asian tour, overshadowed
by his mishandling of Russian aggression in Ukraine, he faces a Washington
Post-ABC News survey showing his job approval score has sunk to 41
percent.

More ominous for Democrats, who now fear they could lose control of
the Senate this fall, a majority of voters say "they prefer a Congress in
Republican hands to check the president's agenda," the Post reported
Tuesday.

Obama's job approval polls have been stuck in the low 40s since last
year, but the Post's latest survey shows a sharp plunge in his scores
between March and the end of April.

Last month, his approval level stood at just 46 percent, with 50
percent disapproving of the job he was doing. This week, his approval-
disapproval score was 41-52 percent respectively. That's the lowest
performance grade of his presidency in the Post's surveys.

Other voter responses gave Obama embarrassingly low scores across the
board on major issues that will most likely decide who controls Congress
in the last two years of his administration.

Just 42 percent of Americans polled said they approved of his
handling of the economy; only 37 percent said they approved of the way
he's handled the implementation of the Affordable Care Act; and a mere
34 percent approve of the way he's responded to Russia's continuing
threats to forcefully seize additional parts of neighboring Ukraine.

These and other failing grades cast a pall of gloom over Democrats
as Congress reopened for business this week after a lengthy recess. But
they gave Republicans reason to cheer that they were winning the midterm
election battle for the heart and soul of the American people.

"Obama's low rating could be a significant drag on Democratic
candidates this fall -- past elections suggest that when approval ratings
are as low as Obama's, the president's party is almost certain to suffer
at the ballot box in November," writes the Post's chief political analyst
Dan Balz.

The president has openly complained that his party will be in
trouble in November because turnout in much of his party's base --
especially among minorities and younger voters -- is always lower in
midterm elections.

But surveys show that voter intensity is stronger in the GOP as a
result of its deep opposition to Obamacare and the president's failures on
the economy and jobs.

In a pivotal question in the Post-ABC poll that no doubt shocked
Democrats on Capitol Hill, pollsters asked voters: "Regardless of how you
might vote, is it more important to have Democrats in charge of Congress,
to help support Obama's policies, or to have Republicans in charge of
Congress, to act as a check on Obama's policies?"

Just 39 percent said it was more important to have the Democrats in
charge, compared to 53 percent who said, "Republicans in charge."
Eight percent had no opinion.

But perhaps no other issue was as fraught with political peril for
the Democrats than the persistently weak Obama economy.

On this question, the poll found extensive pessimism about the
economy and jobs -- "with more than seven in 10 describing the economy in
negative terms."

Despite Obama's insistence over the course of his troubled
presidency that the economy has improved under his policies, the Post
found that "Public attitudes about the future of the economy are anything
but rosy."

A minuscule 28 percent said the economy was getting better, while 36
percent said it was worse, and 35 percent said "it's staying the same."

These numbers tell us in the starkest terms possible that Americans
do not believe the White House claims, or the president's repeated
assurance that the economy has gotten measurably better.

They also tell us that Americans have not swallowed the national
news media biased reports in recent years that the economy is in a "solid"
recovery stage. The news media claims are seen as exaggerated, especially
on the jobs front.

How many unemployment reports have we heard each month that more
jobs were created, without detailing what kind of jobs they were talking
about, at what pay level, or whether they were part-time or full-time.

For example, a revealing new analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics data shows that key economic sectors who produced the most jobs
in the last four years were the ones that paid the least.

These sectors -- retail, administrative/support work, i.e.,
answering phones, and restaurant, food and drink services accounted for
nearly 40 percent of all the jobs created by private employers since the
recovery supposedly began four years ago, according to the National
Employment Law Project.

Notably, low paying sectors accounted for 22 percent of lost jobs in
the recession from 2008 to 2010. But they now account for 44 percent of
the job growth since that time.

"That means that the economy is skewed more heavily than it was
pre-recession toward the kind of employment that may not even cover basic
housing costs," writes Emily Badger in a story the Post buried at the
bottom of page 13.

You didn't hear this on the nightly news, did you? Or for that
matter from Democrat leaders in Congress who were fond of labeling all of
the jobs created during the explosive Reagan recovery of the '80s as
"hamburger flippers."

But the day of reckoning is at hand. The Post-ABC poll found that
45 percent of registered voters said they plan to vote for the Democrat in
House elections this fall, while 44 percent said they intend to vote
Republican.

When Democrats lost control of the House in 2010, they led by five
points on this question.